Home > Categories > Health Fraud 101-
Health fraud falls into two broad classes - telling people lies that may kill them or someone else, and stealing from people by selling bogus medicines. The sites listed here provide useful information in the battle against quackery and for people just wanting to find out more about how real medicine works. (A list of sites offering suspect or fraudulent medical advice, products and services can be found at The Millenium Project.)
Books relating to this category can be found here.
There are sites listed in this category. Please click here for a condensed listing without descriptions of the entries.
NIAID's HIV/AIDS Research Program
Hoping to end debate, spur action worldwide, scientists sign statement that HIV causes AIDS
The NSW Public Health Bulletin
The NSW Public Health Bulletin is produced by the Public Health Division of the NSW Department of Health as an information vehicle for the whole public health community in New South Wales (Australia).
Nutra-Smart.net (Stuart Adams)
"The intelligent guide to good health and longevity through optimal nutrition".
ONE.org - HIV/AIDS and Other Infectious Diseases
ONE.org - Maternal & Child Health
Operation Cure.All (US Federal Trade Commission)
This website offers information for consumers on how to recognize health fraud, guidance for businesses on how to market health products and services truthfully, and information about the FTC's initiatives.
PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health)
PATH's mission is to improve health, especially the health of women and children. An emphasis is placed on improving the quality of reproductive health services and on preventing and reducing the impact of widespread communicable diseases. PATH identifies, develops, and applies appropriate and innovative solutions to public health problems. This is accomplished by exchanging knowledge, skills, and technologies with governmental and nongovernmental partners in developing countries and with groups in need elsewhere.
Persiflagers Annotated Compendium of Infections Disease Facts, Opinion and Dogma (Mark Crislip)
"The PACID is an electronic guide to Infectious Diseases for use by all medical people. It is a series of hyperlinked pages covering antibiotics, pathogens and diseases"
Pharmaceutical & Medical Abbreviation Dictionary
A dictionary of over 70,000 medical, pharmaceutical, biomedical & healthcare acronyms and abbreviations.
Potential Forensic Significance of Traditional Herbal Medicines
"Traditional herbal substances may contain highly toxic chemicals and heavy metals, in addition to naturally occurring organic toxins. These substances may cause illness, exacerbate pre-existing ill health or result in death, particularly if taken in excess or in an unusual manner …"
Probability and Statistics -- from MathWorld
The abuse or misunderstanding of statistics is endemic in pseudoscience. This site explains many of the tests and terms used in statistics. (Warning - lots of maths, but generally understandable by a lay person.)
Sir Thomas Browne's great 1646 treatise on fallible thinking and self-deception.
Public Health (General) Amendment Regulation 2008 - NSW Department of Health
This Regulation amends the Public Health (General) Regulation 2002 to prescribe a code of practice for the provision of health services by:
a) health practitioners who are not required to be registered under a health registration Act (including de-registered health practitioners), and
b) health practitioners who are registered under a health registration Act who provide health services that are unrelated to their registration.
PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE citations back to the mid-1960's and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.
"The Quack Doctor, a collection of panacean powders, pills, potions, procedures and pamphlets, as advertised in historical newspapers"
"A podcast review of Quacks, Frauds and Charlatans. Oops. That's not right. That should be Complementary and Alternative Medicine i.e. CAM"
The purpose of this web site is to provide links and information, stimulate debate, and exchange ideas regarding healthcare, health fraud, quackery, alternative medicine, metaphysics, religion, etc., often spiced with sarcasm and humor.
"Experiments and Thoughts on Quackery, Health Beliefs and Pseudoscience"
The granddaddy of all the anti-quackery sites.
Quantum Quackery (Victor J. Stenger)
Recovered Memory Therapy in Australia
"Unregulated counsellors and psychotherapists present a real threat to ordinary Australian families. RMT is nothing less than 'trial by therapy'. Mothers and fathers are presumed guilty: there is virtually no defence".
Regulation of advertising of therapeutic goods in Australia
Rosemary Jacob's argyria introduction page (Rosemary Jacobs)
Read this before you believe anyone who tries to sell you "colloidal silver" as a treatment for anything.
A science teacher's way to spread education about science.
Science Business (David Shaywitz)
Science, Reason and Critical Thinking (Crispian Jago)
The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine
The purpose of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine is to apply the best tools of science and reason to determine whether hypotheses are valid and treatments are effective. It will reject no claims because it fits, or fails to fit, some paradigm. It will simply seek justified answers to two questions: "Is it true?" and "Does this treatment work?"
The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice
The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice (SRMHP) is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted exclusively to distinguishing scientifically-supported claims from scientifically-unsupported claims in clinical psychology, psychiatry, social work, and allied disciplines.
"Promoting good science and evidence for the public"
Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings About Herbs
Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings About Vitamins and Supplements
The Skeptical OB (Dr. Amy Tuteur)
The Skeptic's Dictionary - Alternative Medicine (Robert T. Carroll)
This is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for scientific skepticism.
Stop Sylvia Browne (Robert Lancaster)
Taubman Medical Library Homeopathy Collection
Therapeutic Goods Administration (Australia)
The Australian community expects that medicines and medical devices in the marketplace are safe and of high quality, to a standard at least equal to that of comparable countries. The objective of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, which came into effect on 15 February 1991, is to provide a national framework for the regulation of therapeutic goods in Australia and ensure their quality, safety and efficacy.
Therapeutic Goods Administration (Australia) - Complaints Resolution Panel
Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code Council (Australia)
In Australia all advertisements and generic information provided about Therapeutic Goods directed to the public must comply with provisions of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990 and the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code (TGAC).
This book, originally published in 1961, chronicles the rise of the patent medicine trade from its beginnings in colonial America until passage of the first federal food and drug law. Dr. Young (1915-2006) was a social historian whose special interest was the development of food and drug regulation in America. He served for many years as a professor of history at Emory University and also wasas a member of the FDA National Advisory Food and Drug Council. The book is reproduced with the kind permission from him and the publisher, Princeton University Press.
"This web site will prove that eating red meat and natural animal fats while restricting carbohydrates is not only healthy but will prevent and cure many diseases".
Understanding Cancer Series (National Cancer Institute)
"This Web site contains graphic-rich tutorials for educational use by life science teachers, medical professionals, and the interested public"
"While our ability to accurately diagnose and treat allergic disease has benefited from scientific understanding of what happens during an allergic reaction, a number of tests and treatments have been promoted in the absence of any scientific rationale. Some non-conventional approaches to disease also claim that various disorders unrelated to allergy have an immune basis. These tests and treatments have been shown to be unreliable when subjected to careful study. ASCIA advises against use of these tests for diagnosis or to guide medical treatment"
"People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities"
The Watchtower Society and Medical Quackery
Member of the Anti-Quackery Ring
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